Alchemy in the Realm of Bacteria - CR4 Discussion Thread

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Silas Marner Power-User Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: In my house, at the loom. Posts: 197 Good Answers: 3	Alchemy in the Realm of Bacteria 07/14/2006 11:08 AM
	Before chemistry, there was the "science" of alchemy. One of the major goals of medieval alchemists was to transmute substances into gold. As far as is known, no one was ever successful...that's no one, not no thing... Researchers in Australia have been studying Ralstonia, a bacteria that may play a role in turning dust into gold... Actually, if you read the article from CNN, they aren't really successful in "creating" gold, they just collect tiny molecules of the precious substance and accumulate them into nuggets. Sure as heck beats panning for the stuff... __________________ The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature . . .
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Chris Leonard Friend of CR4 Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1776 Good Answers: 35	#1 That Alchemy site is pretty cool 07/14/2006 11:16 AM
	Especially the collection of translated texts. Glad to see that both chemistry and medical science have progressed past curatives such as the Elixir of Aristeus. __________________ Off to take on other challenges. Good luck everybody! See you around the Interwebs.
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Lapinbleu Commentator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Douarnenez, Bretagne, France Posts: 80 Good Answers: 1	#2 In reply to #1 Re:That Alchemy site is pretty cool 07/14/2006 4:20 PM
	Excellent site, indeed. It is easy, with hindsight and spectrometry, to mock the alchemists. Their search is often interpreted by the mercantile as a vulgar get-rich-quick attempt to turn car batteries into gold bricks, or that the body should live forever. The true goal of the alchemist is the transformation of himself from base to noble, rather more subtle, and difficult to quantify... __________________ "Experience is a combination of the mistakes we have made, and those which we have seen made by others..." simeonlapinbleu.googlepages.com/home
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John77 Power-User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 129	#3 Alchemy 08/21/2006 9:15 AM
	When I was young some scientists had found a way to transmute metals by bombarding them with alpha particles and/or neutrons (or do I mean neutrinos - it was a long time ago) and it is relatively "easy" to turn Gold into Lead but not so easy the other way round. It appeared (then!) that, if you want to turn another metal into Gold, the easiest way is to start with Platinum.
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Chris Leonard (1); John77 (1); Lapinbleu (1)

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